BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Player Boards => Challenges and Gatherings => After Action Reports => Topic started by: CungrVanck on 16 July 2015, 09:42:39
-
Forgot to post this game from a couple weeks ago here on the boards . Oops!
After Action Report 6-27-2015 for the 3rd Company, 1st Battalion, 14th Legion of Vega (Aguilar’s Company) with the White Eagles Squadron in support during the continuing Battle for Vega Campaign
Opponents: CungrVanck (aka me) (Draconis Combine - Defender) vs. Farmer John (Fed Commonwealth - Attacker)
Forces: 12 Battlemechs and 6 aerospace fighters per side chosen by random roll
Scenario: Hide & Seek with hidden units, Lance Skills (Lucky, Sniper, Speed Demon) & Forced Withdrawal in effect under normal weather conditions
Result: Victory for the Combine (307 versus 117 victory points). However, the Combine suffered the loss of five units (three mechs and two fighters) to the Fed Coms loss of two units (two mechs). No salvage was recovered. As this is a campaign game, I would count this as a costly victory.
After deployment and the first few rounds of movement, here is how the battle began.
The Combine had a Lance of mechs hidden within the city across the middle of the board with a supporting Lance of LRM equipped mechs in the back half of the city behind buildings to act as artillery. My third Lance of fast moving mechs was moving on the left flank behind cover to get behind the enemy while 4 of my fighters were coming in from the right. The last pair of fighters (in an error on my part) where coming straight up the middle.
Farmer John, not knowing where my hidden units were, came up with his mechs and fighters in a center-right position as a group to support one another.
The first action was John sending his LOCUST mech into the city to locate my hidden units. This revealed two of my units and they had to redeploy to the left to avoid getting hammered by the incoming mechs. For the most part, my mechs either stayed still or continued their march on the left. John moved one Lance into the city in the center and the other two into the city on the right. Meanwhile, in the air, John used his fighters to attack the two hidden mechs he discovered while I used my fighters to intercept. However, as my machines were either behind cover or had not yet reached the field, John was able to focus all of his firepower to bring down my two light fighters while I only returned minimal damage.
The next round, John sent his LOCUST in again to recon the rest of the city and found my other two hidden units. However, when I again moved my units to avoid being pummeled, John followed up by moving an entire lance to attack my fleeing PHOENIX HAWK. While on the left, John moved his left most Lance further into the city. This made his forces strung out and unable to fully support one another. Thus I was able to take my HUNCHBACK and left flank RIFLEMAN out from cover and engage his closest Lance. A lucky die roll allowed me to take out one of his THUNDERBOLTs while my LRM Lance started bombarding the remaining CENTURION and two HATCHETMAN machines. Meanwhile, I used my ORION and RIFLEMAN in my center and right to engage his second Lance while my left flank Lance was one turn away from turning the flank. While my PHOENIX HAWK miraculously dodged the entire fire of one Lance, my right flank RIFLEMAN was heavily hit and put into forced withdrawal. However, due to two motive hits, he could only move two inches a turn. At the same time, I was able to hit the LOCUST and place it into forced withdrawal as well.
John quickly realized his error and started to retreat on the left while repositioning on the right. I pursued in the center with my HUNCHBACK and RIFLEMAN while continuing the bombardment of LRMs while turning the flank on the left. On the right, my other RIFLEMAN when down to combined fire.
Here is where I mention dice rolls. For the most part, the dice rolls had been average on both sides. We had some lucky shots, but then we missed some freaking simple ones. I mention them here, as after all the fire was done on the left, I had lost my HUNCHBACK and second RIFLEMAN while only taking out a HATCHETMAN and damaging a CENTURION in return. I think I should have done better. Other action this turn was two of John’s fighters swinging around and attacking my LRM Lance with significant damage to my WHITWORTH. But, the big occurrence was on the right!
This is the second game I have played with Aerospace fighter and I now see how freaking useful they can be. At the beginning of the game, I had sent my heavy and medium fighters on a far right path thinking I would maybe catch a mech in withdrawal or mech by itself a few rounds into the game. They now arrived in game, and due to John redeploying/falling back in tight groups, I could hit five mechs in a strafing run for each of my fighters. By overheating my fighters to add to the potential damage, I could put attacks worth 18 points of damage against each target in one round. So with a WARHAMMER, GRASSHOPPER, CENTURION, SHADOW HAWK and that limping LOCUST in my sights, I opened up.
So of course, I missed every shot but one. Most of the misses were by one point. D’oh!
However, there are two points here I must bring up. Force wise, John’s units were all Level 3 while most of mine where Level 4 in skill (lower being better). Also, the units I attacked had the Speed Demon skill which made them harder to hit. So had my fighters been more skilled or John’s mechs slightly slower or I had used bombs (we didn’t have any in this scenario – but they are easier to hit with than a strafe attack), I would have put the hurt on 33% of his force in one round. Ouch. I believe I will invest in some anti-aircraft specialized mechs in the future.
At this point, we called the game as John yielded the field. On the ground, I wanted to continue as I think I could have finished off that CENTURION and HATCHETMAN with little loss, but in the air…well, after that awesome display of firepower my fighters needed a turn to cool off….but if John’s fighters caught up with them while doing so….dead fighters.
So yeah, I took my pyrrhic victory by halting the enemy advance, but John was smiling as he did a lot of damage that will affect game play in the campaign later. It’s very expensive to replace machines in this campaign and we only have some many points for resupply, repair and purchase. The first side that runs out of points loses.